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National Review sides with the Communist oppressors

July 6th, 2009, 1:25 pm by fsherman

From Andy McCarthy on the National Review website:

“The Wall Street Journal (as flagged in the NRO web briefing) reports on rioting in China by Uighur “students” that has left scores dead and hundreds wounded. The “students,” described elsewhere in the story as from a “predominantly Muslim ethnic group[, which has] long chafed at restrictions on their civil liberties and religious practices imposed by a Chinese government fearful of political dissent,” expressed their dissent by torching cars and buses, as well as — according to accounts of some witnesses to state-controlled media — rampaging “with big knives stabbing people” on the street.

No reason for non-Muslims in Bermuda, Palau, or the United States to worry, though. The lovable Uighurs are merely trying to address “economic and social discrimination.” Once they get social justice, I’m sure they’ll stop.”

The Uighurs have been actively persecuted by the Chinese government. The protests were, in part, a response to the deaths of two Uighurs (possibly more) last month at the hands of a Chinese mob. Accounts of the rioting and Uighur brutality come through the Chinese state news service.

Swallowing China’s portrayal of the Uighurs is like swallowing a press release from Pravda back in the USSR’s heyday. Whether it’s because of the bias of so many right wingers against Islam or just that the Bush administration chose to lock them up (and the right wing is firmly committed to the principle that everyone the Bush administration locked up was an enemy of America), at least some Communist propaganda is now acceptable, it seems.

Posted in: Injustice • Religion | Post a Comment »

And the point on which he’s horrifically wrong.

June 26th, 2009, 12:11 pm by fsherman

Hart again: “In reality, these not-ready-for-democracy players in imperialistic parts of the world are better served in the short run under the control of a strong-armed leader. ‘Thug-ocracies’ can be fine for keeping countries under control until democracy can take its natural course; China and Russia come to mind as examples.”

And pray tell me, Mr. Hart, which parts of the world are those? Which is this thug-ocracy where everyone is better off than if they had free elections? How exactly does this benefit the people of China? Or Tibet, which is an occupied state?

And what makes you think democracy will “take its natural course”? China hasn’t had democracy in 50 years and it shows little sign of softening. Saddam or one of his sons would probably be still be in charge in Iraq if we hadn’t invaded (no, I don’t consider that a good reason to go in, but it’s certainly true). Saudi Arabia has less democracy than Iran, but they royal family isn’t letting go.

And what does this have to do with Iran? They were ready for democracy back in 1953, then we decided they were electing the wrong people and installed the Shah and financed his secret police? If they’re not ready for democracy—and it looks like a lot of them are pretty keen on it—wouldn’t that be our fault?

Admittedly, this is a fairly common attitude in Washington: People are ready for democracy when they vote the way we like, and if they’re not then they clearly need “stability” or “a firm hand” or some other euphemism. Many of our leaders have no qualms going several steps beyond Hart’s Thugocracy Is Good thesis; they don’t merely tolerate the thugs, they overthrow democracies (Guatemala, Iran) or prop up tyrants (Panama, Iraq, El Salvador) so we can get the oil or the mining or whatever else it is we think we’re entitled to.

It’s one of our country’s most shameful legacies.

Posted in: Injustice • War/military | Post a Comment »

Obama is not an Iranian

June 23rd, 2009, 2:01 pm by fsherman

So the latest trend in right-wing outrage is to blast Obama for not doing enough to support the Iranian protesters. This ranges from Ron Hart (in his upcoming Saturday column) saying he should give them “a shout out of support” to the Conunderground blog asserting that “Obama and his staff should be dragged to the Hague for crimes against humanity … Failure to act in support of liberty and freedom, the basic condition of human existence, is a crime against humanity.”

While Hart’s position (ditto other conservatives who’ve said the same thing) is a reasonable one, I don’t agree with it. I think antiwar.com is probably correct that it will do more harm than good. For one thing, the American government is hardly a friend to Iran: We overthrew their previous democratic government in 1953 to impose the Shah, backed his Saavik secret police, signed off on Saddam’s use of poison gas on Iranians in the Iran-Iraq War and have within the past few years labeled them part of an “Axis of Evil” and made noises about regime change.

Under the circumstances, I think antiwar’s Daniel Luban makes the right comparison: “Consider the following thought experiment. In 1963, as King delivers his famous speech to the March on Washington, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev delivers a public message of his own to the protesters. ‘We would like to tell these brave voices of freedom,’ Khrushchev says, ‘that they have the full support and solidarity of the USSR. The Soviet Union and the United States Communist Party are ready and willing to perform any measures within our power to help our American brothers and sisters obtain their rights from this oppressive regime. And although Dr. King pretends that he holds no hostility toward the American capitalist system of government itself, and wishes only to secure the ideals of the American founding for all of its citizens, we all know that he and his supporters really yearn for complete regime change in Washington. We in Moscow will do whatever it takes to help you achieve this goal.’

Let us ignore the question of Khrushchev’s intentions here: whether he is motivated by genuine sympathy and desire to aid the civil rights marchers, or a more cynical hope of destabilizing a rival government, or a narcissistic and self-righteous wish to take credit for the marchers’ achievement in order to feel better about himself and appease his domestic critics. (And before anyone gets up in arms about “moral equivalence,” let me note than I am not equating Obama’s America and Khrushchev’s Russia, merely noting that Obama and Khrushchev occupy structurally similar positions as leaders of distrusted rival powers.)

Let us focus only on a simple tactical question: would Khrushchev’s statement aid the civil rights movement? Would it be welcomed by King and his associates? Why or why not?”

Posted in: Injustice • Politics • War/military | Post a Comment »

Not good

June 22nd, 2009, 1:32 pm by fsherman

From The Wonk Room , the news that the Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that alleged rapist William Osborne has no constitutional right to pay for DNA testing that could clear his name.

The evidence was tested during the original trial, but that was a decade ago, and couldn’t give a definite statement.

Chief Justice Roberts’ argument was that allowing Osborne to do this risks “unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice” and that DNA testing ““cannot mean that every criminal conviction, or even every criminal conviction involving biological evidence, is suddenly in doubt.”

I’ve read arguments that Osborne is probably guilty. From his criminal record other than this conviction, he’s certainly a nasty piece of work, but that’s irrelevant: If he’s innocent, he still shouldn’t be in jail for the crime.

Another argument is that he hasn’t followed state procedure for challenging conviction based on proof of innocence, or that he should have pursued this case another way (habeas rights rather than a civil rights suit). That may be technically correct, but it sounds a lot like the “legal loophole” conservatives are always complaining lets guilty people walk; denying a claim of innocence because it wasn’t procedurally correct seems to be the same thing in the opposite direction.

I think the decision unsettles me, in part, because Roberts’ argument is the same one prosecutors have made even in cases where innocence has been proven: If there’s no procedure that requires a innocent person go free, they should stay locked up. Anything else would disrupt the system.

If the system is locking up innocent people and the authorities are refusing to let them out, the system needs to be disrupted.
EDITED: Forgot to say that the Obama DoJ followed in the footsteps of its predecessor in supporting the no-testing side.

Posted in: Injustice | Post a Comment »

Walter Williams, unintentional humorist

June 19th, 2009, 7:49 am by fsherman

In his column today, Williams announces that the reason the left is “making common cause with radical Islam” is (quoting right-winger Mark Steyn) that both “recoil from the concept of the citizen, of the free individual entrusted to operate within his own societal space.”

So the example of progressives allying with radical Islam for this purpose is … what? Oh, he didn’t offer any.

I can find a lot more common ground between the Religious Right’s pronounciations that women belong in the home and must submit to men and the claims of militant Islam that women should do exactly the same thing. Or for that matter, the Islamists’ grumbles about how women must cover up to stop arousing male lust and Williams’ column some years back on how women wouldn’t get raped so much if they’d dress like ladies.

And during negotiations on the Convention of the Rights of Women a few years ago, it was conservative groups supported by the Bush administration that sided with Islamic groups on arguing against a ban on genital mutilation, honor killing and domestic abuse that said these things can’t be excused by culture or tradition (the right-wing rationalization: “They’re saying tradition is a bad thing.”).

Posted in: Injustice • Politics • Sexism | Post a Comment »

Well isn’t that special?

June 16th, 2009, 1:23 pm by fsherman

The Orlando Sentinel reports the case of an Orlando police dog whose handler claimed it could still track scents six months after someone had been at a crime scene. Several people were convicted on this basis (prosecutors apparently brought in the wonder dog whenever they needed to tie a suspect to a crime scene); one spent 22 years in prison before being freed on DNA evidence.

Neither Gov. Crist, the Florida Attorney General or State Attorney Norm Wolfinger want to make a general review of cases in which the dog provided evidence; Wolfinger’s office said it doesn’t have a record of such cases, or any way to compile one.

“Defendants have had rights in Florida to challenge their convictions through a well established post-conviction process,” the statement said.

And I’m sooooo sure the state will be behind them 100 percent when they do.

Posted in: Florida • Injustice | Post a Comment »

Randall Terry, terrorist sympathizer and victim blamer

June 2nd, 2009, 10:52 am by fsherman

On the George Tiller murder in Kansas: “The whole point of this story should be, in part, what did George Tiller do that was so horrifying that it drove this man to that extremity?”

In other words, if someone murders an abortion doctor, don’t blame the people who say they deserve to die, blame the victim. Which is just a variation of the same argument terrorists and their supporters always use.

What Tiller did in some cases was save lives of women who were in life or death situation. Or abort babies who had horrifying, probably fatal birth defects.

Tell me, if right to lifers make it impossible for a woman whose pregnancy might kill her to get treatment–and there are only two doctors left in the country who do third-trimester abortions–wouldn’t that make them murder? By their own logic, wouldn’t I be justified in gunning them down to save lives?

I don’t think so, of course. And neither do they. But I think so because nobody has the right to go around handing out vigilante justice for people carrying out lawful acts; they don’t think so because they believe they and they alone are carrying out God’s will (they in this case being everyone who endorses violence as a solution to America allowing women control over their own bodies).

Obsidian Wings has multiple posts on this topic, all worth reading.

Posted in: Injustice • Religion • Sexism | Post a Comment »

I like Stephen Chapman but …

June 2nd, 2009, 9:28 am by fsherman

In quoting Judge Sotomayor’s statement that “a wise Latina woman” might make a better decision than a white male, he should have added the closing statement to her speech: “I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that, to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires.”

That seems to answer conservative complaints that she’s going to be making decisions based on identity politics. Check out Glenn Greenwald for examples of Sotomayor decisions based on law rather than her racial perspective.

In one case, for example, an NYPD computer guy was fired for emailing racist anonymous letters to various charitable groups (Negros are rapists! Jews control the media instead of real Americans! and similar sentiments). Sotomayor wrote a dissent arguing that since the letters were anonymous, on his own time and there was nothing to link them to the department but its own investigation, this was a violation of the guy’s free speech rights.

I doubt the right wing will give her any credit for that, of course, since the real issue is that she’s neither white nor male. And everyone knows that white males are the most qualified for everything.

One NRO writer, for instance, argued that sure, white people get special treatment—well-connected parents, legacy admissions to top colleges—but they use them to make something of themselves, whereas nonwhite people who get preferential treatment just use to skate through life and have everything handed to them. Because, you know, they’re just that way. As expressed here

Posted in: Injustice • Justice • Racism | Post a Comment »

Republicans play the long game

May 22nd, 2009, 9:15 am by fsherman

The Bush/Cheney administration radicalizes a new generation of terrorists through actions like torture and unnecessary wars. Then, when the blowback comes, they’ll try to blame it on someone else – specifically, on the people trying to clean up their mess. It’s like dousing a house with gasoline, and then blaming the cleanup crew when someone comes along with a match trying the burn the thing down.
From publius on Obsidian Wings regarding Cheney’s speech and his justifications for torture:
“One of the many problems with the Cheney/Geraghty logic is that the Bush administration’s methods can’t be judged strictly on short term results – just like the effects of smoking cigarettes can’t be judged purely in the short term. The blowback from these actions takes years or even decades to fully materialize (see, e.g., USSR vs. Afghanistan in the 1980s). God only knows, for instance, how many battle-hardened terrorists we’ve created and trained in the “classroom” of Iraq. And who knows what they’ll do.

But anyway, a terrorist attack will happen one day. When it does, Cheney and his followers announced today that they will seek to divide the country based on fear and hate and paranoia – just like they did in 2002. ”

Also see Hilzoy on ObWi about Obama’s speech and why his embrace of “preventive detention” is a bad idea.

Posted in: Injustice • Politics • Torture | Post a Comment »

Wrong, wrong, wrong (title edited now that I’m less annoyed)

May 21st, 2009, 6:22 am by fsherman

On Hardball, Sen. Saxby Chambliss on why we can’t transfer Gitmo terrorists to the US: “These are folks that either have killed or tried to kill Americans. And we ned to make sure that they don’t have the rights given to those criminals that are on American soil, such as the right of habeas corpus, and a certain number of them will probably be successful in a habeas corpus action and could be released in America. And we don’t need to give the Americans the exposure of that nature.”
Sen Ben Nelson: “It’s a matter of politics, it’s a matter of policy, and even if you didn’t run the risk of habeas corpus and some of the other rights that they might be able to assert on American soil, it’s inappropriate. This is not the place for them.”

People held in Gitmo have the right of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court has established that; it was a major controversy when it happened.

And Chambliss statement that “We know that the ones that are left in Guantanamo are the meanest, nastiest killers in the world.” isn’t factual either. Nothing has been proven against any of them, and the Bush administration acknowledged some of them are innocent.

The reason why our prisons won’t be good enough to keep them locked up? I guess Luthor and the Joker will find a way to break them out.

(Thanks to digby for the link).

Posted in: Injustice • Terrorism | Post a Comment »